Microsoft decides to be nice to hackers

Microsoft will be taking a very different approach to hackers as the company announced that it will be working with a young hacker who recently tried to hack into Microsoft’s Xbox Live service. This is a complete opposite of what Sony is doing after the recent PlayStation Network and Store security breaches.

As TechEye reports, Microsoft’s Ireland General Manager Paul Rellis announced that the company is working with a young hacker, a 14 year old boy from Ireland who tried to hack an online server for Modern Warfare 2 and was subsequently prevented from accessing sensitive information belonging to players by Microsoft. Microsoft wants to use the boy for “more legitimate purposes.”

This is the complete opposite of what Sony is doing, as the company recently “declared war” on all hackers. Unfortunately, this has led no where for Sony.

Sony shut down its PlayStation Network on April 20 due to a breach where personal information of more than 100 million users were compromised.

In a recent survey by Gamespot, 2,285 PS3 owners were surveyed and questioned about the PlayStation Network outage. 28% of respondents said that they would not trust Sony with any personal information, while 14% said they would never trust Sony again. Respondents were also asked if they would jump ship to Microsoft’s Xbox platform and 9% said that they already made the switch while 5% said that the switch was going to happen soon.

Do you guys think Microsoft is taking a unique and smart approach to this issue?